AUSTIN, Texas — The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) released new information regarding the readiness of the Texas power grid ahead of the spring season.
ERCOT manages the flow of power through the Texas grid. In its latest report, ERCOT said that "there will be sufficient installed generating capacity available to serve the system-wide forecasted peak demand for the upcoming spring season, March-May."
According to the Seasonal Assessment of Resource Adequacy (SARA) report, ERCOT will have almost 99,800 MW of spring-related resource capacity available for the spring peak.
April and May are forecasted to have peak demands of 59,505 MW and 69,921 MW. ERCOT determines these peak demands by taking the average weather conditions during the spring peaks from 2007 through 2021. ERCOT also takes into consideration an increase in usage during "Large Loads" – like crypto-mining facilities to "Transmission Service Provider networks."
The report also discussed outage assumptions, which are based on historical outage data from the spring seasons of 2019, 2020 and 2022. However, ERCOT excluded data from Spring 2021, when Winter Storm Uri hit Texas.
According to the report, "a typical thermal generating unit outage assumption of 19,536 MW for the spring generator maintenance window, March-April and 15,979 MW at the time of the forecasted spring peak load in May."
Read the full report from ERCOT on the grid's readiness.